But along with that celebration of facts, of course, come the other facts. The other facts being the hostile, knee-jerk defense mechanism used by the stewards of ignorance and denialism in an attempt to force a false dichotomy between things that are real and things that are not real. These other facts are the easily made-up kind that come so easily to those that spend their entire lives being indoctrinated with a belief system based entirely on easily made-up information.
1. Those Potty-Mouthed Potty-Mouths!
Tim Minchin, for anyone that isn't aware, has fucking cheat codes on. Nobody can possibly be that good at that many different things. One of the things he's most goodest at is writing songs like this:
That song, for some reason, offended a fair amount of idiots. If you watched the video you may have noticed that there are a gangsta-rap amount of curse words in the song, which some people find offensive based solely on the fact that they happen to be human shaped shit-brained cunt-bag fuck-tunnel ass-chasms that totally missed the motherfucking point of the goddamn song.
It's not really surprising that the Christian Right claimed the moral high ground on this one, since that is one of their default settings in any situation, along with "I'm humble because the creator of the entire fucking everything listens to me and alters reality on my behalf," "I'm right because I'm right, therefore anyone that disagrees with me is wrong because if they were right then that would mean that I'm wrong, which is clearly impossible since I'm right," and "You're a god-hating, rebellious, close-minded ingrate if you don't believe my particular narrow interpretation of my particular book of clearly impossible fairy tales."
Of course, by claiming the moral high ground by way of disliking fucking profanity, those fucking Christians only proved the fucking point Minchin made 10 seconds into the goddamn video. If you claim to be offended by strong language being used in a song about a religious institution that places a higher priority on covering up endemic child rape and protecting their reputation as God's earthly mouthpiece than on protecting children from fucking being raped by the priests that are supposed to be protecting them, then you are an amoral piece of shit with fucked up ideas of right and wrong. Which ironically voids the claim to the moral high ground. Genius, right? Told you he had cheat codes on.
What surprised me were that other secularists were offended as well. I mean of all the possible demographics to not take offense at magic words I would have placed the freethinker/atheist/rationalist/humanist crowd way down at the bottom, just above 15-year-old pot smokers and contract killers.
Their argument? There are children in that crowd!
You know what? Three things. One, if your child is too young to understand that song then it is not a big deal. My friend got a call from his 7-year-old's teachers the other day for saying 'rape.' Kids hear and mimic offensive shit all the time. If you live in some magic bubble where bad words never happen within earshot of your hopelessly sheltered bubble child then you weren't at the rally. Kids are like parrots. They mimic things that adults say. Especially if the adults are saying adult things, because kids want to feel mature. It's why they play soldier and house and ruthless investment banker. Just because a first grader says fuck or shit or cock doesn't mean they understand the concept of either the word, it's social connotations, or it's arbitrary classification as a 'bad' word. I mean I think 'fluid' is a disgusting sounding word, but I don't give a shit if you write a song called "Pounding This Pinko Lefty's Face into Fluid" and a kid hears it.
Second, if your child is old enough to understand the song, then I fucking guarantee you they hear just as bad on a daily basis. At least in this instance there's a point to the profanity. No matter how offensive someone finds the F word, they should be way more offended by authority figures protecting child rapists.
Third, if your child heard that song, then congratulations! Your child was not being raped by a priest while you were at that rally! Good job! You just won my Not A Shitty Parent Award for 2012!
2. That Atheist Religion!
If anyone is interested in some very obvious, yet very profound ways that atheism isn't religion, check out Nate Phelps, son of terrifying, immortal lunatic Fred Phelps:
If anyone is interested in some very obvious, yet very profound ways that atheism isn't religion, check out Nate Phelps, son of terrifying, immortal lunatic Fred Phelps:
Interestingly enough, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are one of the few Christian cults that not only routinely convince people like me of the absence of a loving an magnanimous personal God, but also get the Bible, as written, mostly right.
One not-very-protip for the religious: one way to minimalize atheism is to equate it to religion. Not that this kind of claim isn't retarded, but because it tends to infuriate atheists, which then opens the door to the "All atheists are angry and miserable" straw-man that can then be safely used to demonize the non-religious to other cult members that never seem to notice the cognitive dissonance required to assign personality traits to people like Nate Phelps that, in reality, seem abundant only in other members of his very religious family.
This type of self-projecting argument is typical of the religious because they tend to be so absolutely inundated with their superstitious beliefs, so enmeshed with their own in-group, and so unquestioningly arrogant and self-righteous about their unfounded and unnecessary dependence on ritual and pareidolia that they can't even begin to imagine that anyone, anywhere could ever possibly be different than them to any significant degree. It's the mentality that gives us arguments like "You believe in God, but are just angry at Him," "You have religious faith in science/man/evolutionism/yourself/the Big Bang/whatever," and "you never really believed/I used to be an atheist too."
This type of self-projecting argument is typical of the religious because they tend to be so absolutely inundated with their superstitious beliefs, so enmeshed with their own in-group, and so unquestioningly arrogant and self-righteous about their unfounded and unnecessary dependence on ritual and pareidolia that they can't even begin to imagine that anyone, anywhere could ever possibly be different than them to any significant degree. It's the mentality that gives us arguments like "You believe in God, but are just angry at Him," "You have religious faith in science/man/evolutionism/yourself/the Big Bang/whatever," and "you never really believed/I used to be an atheist too."
Atheism is not a religion for the same reason that 'nothing' isn't a food group.It's the same reason 'healthy' isn't a disease, 'homeless' isn't an address, and 'clear' isn't a color. It's an absence of belief in god/s/ess/esses. Without God you don't have religion, with the possible arguable exceptions of Buddhism and Druidism. The fact that there is enough demand in this country to even have a rally for atheists is because of religion. Many, if not most, atheists in this country feel cut off and alone, like tiny islands of rational thought in vast oceans of superstition. And I, for one, hate that I only know like two people I can talk openly to about this without worrying that it will turn into an argument. So once, just once, people like me decided to do the impossible and have a huge meet up at our nation's capitol to celebrate this one thing that constantly divides, isolates, and alienates us from the people around them. And in that, the Reason Rally has more in common with Comi-Con or E3 than with tent revivals.
3. Atheists Are Just Lost Little Lambs
One of the problems with religious thinking is that it only allows for absolutes. There is not much room for moral grey areas in divine writ. Thou Shalt Not Kill is pretty clear cut. And while I'm not going to get into the history of that commandment, and it's original intent and meaning, here in 'Merica "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is held up as one of the 'proofs' for the wisdom of God.
Never mind that the Ten Commandments decorate the courthouse lawns all over the American South where men are routinely sentenced to state sanctioned murder, sometimes on circumstantial evidence.
No, my point here is that even when someone is relatively honest about religion's place in the world it still fails to answer anything. Leaving aside the lunatics promoting 'Intelligent Design' and touting 'proof' of a Biblical flood, there are still plenty of religious people that argue that religion, specifically their religion, is a superior prescription for a better moral life.
The rotten branch of religion vs. the wood-chipper of logic.
America, with few exceptions, is entirely moral grey area. America is a fucking argument. Helping the poor is good. But it promotes laziness and entitlement. Universal health care is good. But it will bankrupt us. Small government is good. But it promotes inequality. Murder is unacceptable. Unless you're protecting your family. Theft is wrong. Unless they violated a contract. Child abuse is wrong. Unless it's called for in your religion.You may have noticed that only one of those 12 stances can't be defended with facts.
I believe in some of the teachings of the Bible, like the love thy neighbor thing, but I disagree with the majority of it. And the best thing, the best thing, is that I no longer have to feel guilty about it, or play fucking mental gymnastics to convince myself that it means something other than what it says. I can, in good conscience, say that God sending bears to kill children for making fun of a bald man is barbaric, and no longer have to wonder what's wrong with me.
And that is lost. And you know what? Lost is exactly where I should be. Lost in the endless sky. Lost in the beauty of a seed turning into a plant. Lost, awestruck, marveling at all these humans, all these clever apes, with their hammers and their hugs, being fucking amazing without magic. Lost in the dizzying prospect that I have so much left to learn. It's a goddamned big world, and for the first time I'm truly open to just how big, and it's exhilarating. I'm lost in the cold and the wild and the wind. And it is SO much better than the certainty of a dark, unchanging cell.
That, and there would be, ahem, hell to pay if one of my more religious friends discover my secret plot to turn public schools into gay, socialist orgy centers with a combination abortion clinic/angry feminist indoctrination center in the basement. Because while that is something I'm plotting to do, it's totally unrelated to my stance as an atheist.
One of the problems with religious thinking is that it only allows for absolutes. There is not much room for moral grey areas in divine writ. Thou Shalt Not Kill is pretty clear cut. And while I'm not going to get into the history of that commandment, and it's original intent and meaning, here in 'Merica "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is held up as one of the 'proofs' for the wisdom of God.
Never mind that the Ten Commandments decorate the courthouse lawns all over the American South where men are routinely sentenced to state sanctioned murder, sometimes on circumstantial evidence.
No, my point here is that even when someone is relatively honest about religion's place in the world it still fails to answer anything. Leaving aside the lunatics promoting 'Intelligent Design' and touting 'proof' of a Biblical flood, there are still plenty of religious people that argue that religion, specifically their religion, is a superior prescription for a better moral life.
The rotten branch of religion vs. the wood-chipper of logic.
But that doesn't work either, not only because the Bible is so contradictory that it is literally impossible to apply to life on anything approaching a consistent basis, but because the few things that it's clear on are either considered to be unequivocally wrong in a civilized society (such as child murder, rape, and slavery,) patently obvious without magical help (like love thy neighbor, help the less fortunate, forgive people that cross you,) or extremist stances (like the voter-grab debates on contraception, abortion and gay marriage).
Biblical morality is, and always will be, static. Its outdatedness is one of its main attractions, for some reason, as people are inclined to believe either really really new or really really old information. Any religion, by virtue of its claim of being the unalterable word of God, cannot change or evolve or adapt to an increasingly complex and diverse society.
America, with few exceptions, is entirely moral grey area. America is a fucking argument. Helping the poor is good. But it promotes laziness and entitlement. Universal health care is good. But it will bankrupt us. Small government is good. But it promotes inequality. Murder is unacceptable. Unless you're protecting your family. Theft is wrong. Unless they violated a contract. Child abuse is wrong. Unless it's called for in your religion.You may have noticed that only one of those 12 stances can't be defended with facts.
And the religious have the audacity to claim that secularists have no morals. We have the best morals, because they're ours. They aren't contingent on a supernatural father figure, emotional serfdom, eternal reward or punishment, or the dictates of self-proclaimed authority figures.
I believe in some of the teachings of the Bible, like the love thy neighbor thing, but I disagree with the majority of it. And the best thing, the best thing, is that I no longer have to feel guilty about it, or play fucking mental gymnastics to convince myself that it means something other than what it says. I can, in good conscience, say that God sending bears to kill children for making fun of a bald man is barbaric, and no longer have to wonder what's wrong with me.
And honestly, that's how I came to be an atheist. I had looked at and cherry picked so many different religious beliefs and philosophy texts that one day I realized that my personal religious new-agey Frankenstein had turned into this giant conch shell with no real, definable conch. And then, after further mixing the metaphor, I wondered if the structure would remain standing if I had the sheer, bloody-minded willfulness to kick out the support beam that I was told held the entire structure together. And, lo and behold, it stood. All I had removed from the equation was, literally, nothing.
And in so doing I added more peace of mind, happiness, self-esteem, and true open-mindedness. Sure, I have fewer friends now, and frequently exhaust myself going through the same eight or nine arguments over and over, but it's a small price to pay to truly own myself.
Morals? I have to be at least as moral as my religious counterpart. Not only because I genuinely enjoy being a 'good' person, but because I'm no longer representing myself. I'm representing humanity, unadorned and unaffected. I can't blame my behavior on mystical concepts like sin or devils. I'm not accountable to a sky Santa. I'm accountable to myself and the people and the world around me. I can't absolve myself of personal responsibility through ritual, nor can I justify my actions by claiming it's what God wanted.
And that is lost. And you know what? Lost is exactly where I should be. Lost in the endless sky. Lost in the beauty of a seed turning into a plant. Lost, awestruck, marveling at all these humans, all these clever apes, with their hammers and their hugs, being fucking amazing without magic. Lost in the dizzying prospect that I have so much left to learn. It's a goddamned big world, and for the first time I'm truly open to just how big, and it's exhilarating. I'm lost in the cold and the wild and the wind. And it is SO much better than the certainty of a dark, unchanging cell.
So that's my take on why I do it. Why I don't just shut up, fall in line, make nice, and just pretend for the sake of getting along. Because people like me shouldn't feel like we have to. And also, I'm doing it for the guy still in the herd, because if there hadn't been people that very obviously weren't, then I never would have been able to say "Hey! He doesn't believe, AND is a pretty nice person, despite all the cuss words!"
That, and there would be, ahem, hell to pay if one of my more religious friends discover my secret plot to turn public schools into gay, socialist orgy centers with a combination abortion clinic/angry feminist indoctrination center in the basement. Because while that is something I'm plotting to do, it's totally unrelated to my stance as an atheist.
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